Tescos employs over half a million people and have well over 6000 stores worldwide. It provides everything from shampoo to shellfish, ice cubes to insurance. Now they've branched into home entertainment with blinkbox, a movie download website for the UK that provides a fairly comprehensive catalogue of movies and TV shows. They offer rental or purchase options, as well as varying viewing quality for standard or HD ready devices.

The site itself is rather minimalist, which makes it easy to navigate but rather uninspiring. It certainly doesn't feel as passionate and lovingly created as some other movie sites, and there's almost nothing in the way of additional information, recommendations, articles and so on for a hardcore movie fan to enjoy. But what are its benefits? Well we were pleased to see that users can rate movies, not only providing an account of their viewings but also providing help to other potential viewers. If you love or hate a film, your thoughts can really matter. You are also able to share your movie choices with the wider world by clicking the “share” button, which links directly to your Twitter and Facebook accounts if you so choose.

Customers can watch trailers for movies and have the option to rent or buy a film. Provided a film is available in HD you can choose to pay for a standard edition or HD edition. HD costs more (around 30% more) so it's worth considering whether or not you really will benefit from the high definition. Prices are around industry standard although there are fewer sales than we've seen elsewhere, and there are no great bargains (such as offering 10 movies in one unique category for a reduced price). So essentially, you pay a standard fee for what you're getting.

Blinkbox offers a pretty average service, with all the usual movies and TV shows you'd expect. Its HD options might be an attraction to some, as might the possibility of earning clubcard points, but otherwise this feels an uninspiring website which is created as part of a global brand rather than with movie lovers in mind. If you're happy with that then it's no problem, blinkbox will do the job it's set out to do, but if you want greater choice and a more lovingly-designed website with articles, reviews, features and more then you'll probably want to look elsewhere.